Praising Solitary Shopping

 

I try to shop as quickly as possible to minimise my exposure  to infected droplets emitted by other shoppers. Serious obstacles are groups of people blocking aisles. I can usually navigate my way past solitary shoppers quite easily. The great problems are the blockades constructed by people shopping in pairs.

Couples tend to have prolonged seminars about the tensile strength of the cucumbers. Sometimes they block not only the shelf containing whatever it is they contemplate buying, but several other shelves too. There will be their trolley, with one of them behind the trolley, often with a bottom sticking out behind them, and the other in front of the trolley waving about a sample of whatever it is they might eventually decide to buy. Sometimes one of the pair minds the trolley on one side of the aisle, while the other inspects the opposite side, contorting themselves so that there is too little space for anyone to pass between their buttocks and the trolley. I suspect that many people are not aware of themselves as physical objects

 Shopping should not be a social occasion.